Locating NREM Dreaming Through Instrumental Responses

One difficulty associated with the study of dreams has been the absence of an objective indicator of dreaming in sleep other than REM. This study explores the use of a subjective judgment and instrumental response to mark the occurrence of dreams. Content reports of 8 subjects collected under two conditions were compared. On 2 nights the experimenter determined the time of the awakening and on the other 2 the subject's behavioral response was used as the indicator. The subjects' judgments that they were dreaming proved to be more accurate than was the experimenter's. A single case study of a high NREM responder carried out for 9 nights showed the frequency of NREM dreaming signals to covary with presleep mood.